The Price is Right; Drew Carey is wrong.

By On March 8, 2010 · 13 Comments

“Candidate” Tim misses the bigger picture.  It’s not that not only is Drew Carey hardly a non-partisan figure, but he’s blatantly wrong.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Michael McIntyre, Carey’s entire documentary is that if Cleveland was more like Houston, everything would be hunky dory.

The series, reported and produced by reason.tv’s editor Nick Gillespie, explores problems in Cleveland and other rust belt cities and offers solutions using examples from other cities — such as Houston — that are enjoying success and population growth.

Bottom line? As the Web site’s motto reads, “Free minds and free markets.” In other words, move out of the way, government.

Here’s the list of the top ten downtown employers in Houston:

Largest downtown employers
Number of employees

Shell Oil Co.
5,744

Harris County
4,750

Exxon Mobil Corp.
4,420

City of Houston
4,000

JPMorgan Chase
3,000

Continental Airlines Inc.
2,824

Foley’s
2,500

U.S. Post Office
2,314

CenterPoint Energy Inc.
2,199

U.S. Government
2,100

“Government” is two of the top four, and four of the top ten employers.  “Move out government” and people will move out of Houston.

Maybe the next time Drew Carey is testing his ideological thinking via SimCity, he could simulate what would happen to a city like Houston if you took away the Johnson Space Center and the private sector jobs associated with it.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

About a decade ago, one of the largest private employers in Dallas was a company called Enron… until the evil government stepped in and began investigating it to death.  Drew Carey’s support of Ron Paul and his economic libertarianism would argue that we should have deregulated oversight over companies like Enron. 

Also, Dallas lags behind the nation in high school graduates.  That’s hardly a model for the Cleveland school system to emulate.

Drew Carey is a well-meaning guy, but I don’t take foreign policy advice from Alec Baldwin or economic development advice from Drew Carey.  I just don’t.

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  • Republicans have made a science out of being completely wrong on the merits while being completely untruthful about who they actually are. Good thing they have an actor doing it this time, thespians unite!

  • Hey,
    Let's see. They have 3 energy compannies and JP Morgan.
    JP Morgan wouldn't be welcome here and I don't see us sprouting any oil fields any time soon.
    Dumb Ass!

  • mvirenicus

    did anybody ever think drew carey was/is funny?

  • he did a decent job on whose line. other than that though nah.

  • anastasjoy

    This is very interesting. I just wrote about this from a whole different angle. This article contained so many levels of FAIL. I was most insulted by the fact that the Plain Dealer touted his “solutions” for the area ? an area he moved away from years ago ? as if they were a big deal and we should all pay attention, without revealing his ideological bent and frankly, without mocking him for being a second-rate game-show host and comedian.

    You are so right. These jerks ? like all the foundations that back his little “Reason” Foundations ? love to talk about “less government” being great for economic development. In reality, they're looking only to enrich their corporate buddies and they do not give a rat's ass about the rest of us. Drew Carey's “ideas” are a formula for the complete collapse of this region.

  • In 2004 JPMorgan Chase merged with Columbus-based Bank One Corp and they still have a big presence in Central Ohio.

  • But you're right about the oil companies. We do, however, have a shit load of coal.

  • That really is too bad, another rotten, predatory bank in our midst. Glad I don't have a relationship w/Bankone.
    Plus, WTF, does Drew Carey know about Cleveland, and Ohio, less than I did before I came back here.

  • I imagine Drew Carey came to his libertarian political views the same way people like Penn Jillette or Jesse ventura did – later in life after they had already been successful at their individual careers.

    When people like Carey find fame and fortune they assume it was all because they worked harder than the other guy – and there certainly is some truth to that. But they also forget that a lot of it was just plain luck. Not everyone can go from failing out of Kent State (a state college, btw) to joining the marines (also government-funded) to working at Denny's to become the host of the Price is Right.

    Most people kind of get stuck somewhere along the way and the libertarian world view doesn't have any room for those people.

    That said, I still like Drew Carey (and Penn Jillette and Jesse Ventura too) despite his misdirected foray into libertarian politics. I mean, the guy did give half a million bucks to the Cleveland Library.

  • Just saying, JP Morgan is a big employer in Ohio too – one of the top 10 in Columbus actually: http://hubpages.com/hub/Columbus-Area-Jobs

  • How about this idea proposed by Detroit: rip down tens of thousands of homes and turn the land into parks and farms…

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/detroi…

  • anastjoy: In my view, publicizing Carey's efforts is completely within reason and the ensuing discussion/debate, I hope, will be enlightening. I have to take issue with your assertion that my story FAILED to reveal Carey's ideological bent. The story clearly identifies him as a board member of the Reason Foundation. We describe the foundation as “libertarian leaning” and even pint the organization's motto, “Free minds and free markets.”

    I'd say the story makes the ideology crystal clear.

  • NeoKulaks

    “Republicans have made a science out of being completely wrong on the merits…”

    Science and merits? As in historical and empirical evidence?

    Reminder:
    Democrats have long been and still are the super-majority in Cleveland; impoverished crime-ridden East Cleveland in particular.

    That’s the merit of Democratic rule.

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